On October 30,2014, when Tim Cook had announced that he is ‘Proud to be Gay’, Mark Zuckerberg had openly admired his stand, and stated, “Thank you Tim for showing what it means to be a real, courageous and authentic leader.”
But within 50 days, his opinion on Tim Cook has taken a complete U-turn.
In a recent interview for Time Magazine, where he shared his plans to provide Internet access to all via Internet.org, he has spared no words to criticize Apple’s stand on privacy and advertisement based revenue model.
Infact, he calls it ‘ridiculous concept’.
The Background
Back in September, 2014, hundreds of nude celebrity images were leaked from Apple’s iCloud servers, thereby inciting huge hue and cry over privacy protection and data security of Apple customers. Heat was on Tim Cook to provide an explanation over the whole fiasco. He decided to publish an Open Letter, wherein he described Apple’s stand on privacy issues, and reassured their customers that Apple doesn’t work on advertisement based model, but sells great products.
He had stated, “We don’t “monetize” the information you store on your iPhone or in iCloud. And we don’t read your email or your messages to get information to market to you.”
Taking a clear dig at Google and Facebook, whose business is based on collecting billions of email ids and customer data, Tim wrote, “A few years ago, users of Internet services began to realize that when an online service is free, you’re not the customer. You’re the product. But at Apple, we believe a great customer experience shouldn’t come at the expense of your privacy.”
Around the same time, in another interview, Tim Cook had said, ““If [companies are] making money mainly by collecting gobs of personal data, I think you have a right to be worried. And companies I think should be very transparent about it.”
Both Google and Facebook collects user’s web browsing history, personal information and other data so that advertisers can target relevant and specific advertisements. And Tim Cook decided to defend Apple after the celebrity images leak scandal by creating awareness about advertisement based companies such as Google and Facebook.
In a way, he was trying to tell customers that your data is safer with Apple compared to these companies.
The Retaliation
It seems that these sharp words by Tim Cook have made a mark on Zuckerberg, and they have hit him where it hurts most. After two and half months of these statements, Mark has decided to voice his opinion via Time Magazine’s interview.
He said, “A frustration I have is that a lot of people increasingly seem to equate an advertising business model with somehow being out of alignment with your customers. I think it’s the most ridiculous concept.”
Thereby, on one hand he is defending the advertisement based business model, and at the same time he is ridiculing Tim Cook’s earlier apprehensions.
Infact, he openly challenges Apple by suggesting that if Apple were truly aligned with their customers, then they should bring the price down.
“What, you think because you’re paying Apple that you’re somehow in alignment with them? If you were in alignment with them, then they’d make their products a lot cheaper!”
Wars of words between heads of world’s biggest technological companies have clearly broken out, as the attack has been made on the core business models of these companies.
Apple is suggesting that advertisement based models are not worthy and Facebook is suggesting Apple to bring down the costs of their flagship products.
Google has yet to enter the arena, but if they did, then it would be a pretty interesting clash of titans.
